Experimental study on seismic performance of prefabricated rocking wall frame structure

In order to avoid cracking damage of traditional concrete rocking walls under rare earthquakes and make full use of the convenience of prefabricated structure, a rocking wall structure system using double steel plate concrete wall was designed in this study. The double steel plates can be used as the formwork when pouring concrete for construction of the rocking walls. High-strength bolts were used to connect the rocking walls across the upper and lower floors of the structure. The rocking walls can be precast in the factory and transported to the construction site for installation. Metallic dampers were adopted as energy dissipation connections to connect the rocking walls and main frame structure. Then the story shear force can be transferred to the walls and the earthquake energy can be dissipated. One reinforced concrete (RC) frame specimen and two rocking wall frame specimens were designed and constructed to study the seismic performance of the proposed prefabricated rocking wall frame structures, where the installation positions of metallic dampers were different for the two rocking wall frame specimens. Quasi-static tests were employed to investigate the failure mode and seismic performance of the specimens. It is demonstrated that the rocking walls and the main frame are capable of working coordinately. The metallic dampers are effective in energy dissipation and the bearing capacity and energy dissipation capacity of the structures increase obviously. However, the rocking walls suffer rigid-body displacements in the vertical direction during the tests under large horizontal deformations and the seismic performance of the structure is partly affected. Additional prestress will be included to reduce the effects induced from the vertical lift of rocking walls in future studies.